A team of four was dispatched, including me, heading North through one of the tunnels and towards the tram station that connected with Leedstown. Despite the relatively close proximity of Leedstown, the destruction of the line that headed through the facility meant that attacks from there were very rare indeed. There were few physical pathways that remained to connect Waterway and the bandits who resided there.

  “Are you sure we aren’t going to run into Leeds’s Boys?”

  “For the last time Lockport, they can’t get into this sector with the tramline down. They’d have to fix that up to make any real progress in this direction.”

  “But hypothetically...”

  Magnolia sighed, “Yes. If they reconstructed every charging station between here and there, they could hypothetically reach this side of the facility. Do you imagine that actually happening without Tidewatch finding out first?”

  “Who says that Tidewatch is sharing everything they know with us?” Lockport fretted.

  “I think you’re just coming up with more reasons to be paranoid. They’re completely unfounded.”

  >> There is very little trust in Tidewatch from some Infrabots.

  >> Why would they? They control all of the effective weapons and armour. They call that a ‘monopoly over violence.’

  We were in A568. It was a maintenance access corridor that ran along the main line of the tramway. It was very cramped and extremely dark. Magnolia was taking point with a pair of torches strapped to her head. She was geared up from head to toe with custom-built modifications designed to make her job easier. Extra light sources, exterior batteries, increased foot surface area. I took mental notes and considered copying some of her tricks of the trade.

  It was my first time working with Lockport and Magnolia. Parma had been with them many times before though. He always stared at me when I stepped through the door into the staging room. I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t going to ask without a good reason.

  A56F was only a few minutes away from our position. We left the narrow maintenance corridor and exited out into the old station building. Contrary to what most outsiders may have anticipated, these civilian-facing spaces were designed to be a welcoming environment, like what they would find on the surface in an urban area. It was all about white tile, bright colours, big light sources and plenty of places to sit, shop and socialize.

  That effort had gone to waste with decades of uncontrolled decay. It was dirty and run down, and most of the large windows had been shattered as a result of violent Infrabots wandering through or getting into fights with one another. There was a large puddle in the middle of the mall where a pipe had burst.

  A long time ago thousands of humans would have passed through this station every single day. Now it was abandoned, with empty shelves and squalid conditions. No human would willingly come here now. I glanced around the shopping district and took in as much of the layout as I could. Just ahead was the station itself – a pair of platforms that were designed to allow robots and humans to board the tramline that ran throughout the facility. Again, no trams had run through here in decades.

  “Magnolia.”

  “What?”

  I nodded towards one of the other exits, “Berlin asked me to take a short detour here. Will that be a problem?”

  “What area?”

  “A56D and A57.”

  Magnolia calculated the distance in her head and nodded.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. It looks like we’re going to have a light harvest this time around anyway, so try and find something else while you’re doing that.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Parma said, “Best to work in pairs.”

  With that brief discussion settled, I took the lead with Parma sticking close to my back. I stared through the ruined fronts of each shop and noticed that practically the only thing left untouched by the other robots were the human-sized clothes. Strict anti-contamination policies meant that there were no pests around to eat through them.

  “What exactly are we looking for here? A team has already been through before.”

  “According to Berlin, they left some parts behind because they believed them to be useless. One of his acquaintances is offering more useful parts in exchange for them.”

  “Somebot must have talked about what they found. So, this is just a personal preference thing?”

  “Yes. They are not installing the parts, they want to house them in a ‘museum,’ as Berlin claims.”

  “I know who you’re talking about now. Don’t really see the benefit in collecting obsolete parts like that, but I guess it’s something to occupy herself with...”

  Collecting particular objects seemed to be a common fixation. Plush toys, old parts, artwork, music, and other human possessions were amongst the requests I had seen on the noticeboard. They served no direct purpose beyond amusing the owner or allowing them to enhance their collection.

  “A56D is right here,” I said.

  “It’s locked.”

  Without a second thought I turned the grinder on and took it to the metal latch on the door. It quickly snapped clean in two and allowed us to push through. On the other side was one of the commercial-grade maintenance rooms. These were the places where non-industrial robots were maintained, charged and repaired. Unfortunately for our purposes the charger had long since been vandalized by someone.

  “Just our luck. I knew that this one was broken, but how the hell did they lock the door from the outside?” Parma complained.

  I was too busy rifling through the pile of surplus parts to worry about charging my batteries. What I found was somewhat concerning. Many of the pieces in the bins were industrial grade. Were they bringing parts from the secured areas to these commercial units to save space? That was a serious contradiction of the health and safety rules, and could lead to criminal prosecution for those responsible.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  >> Not that there’s a legal system in place to enforce it...

  “What you got there?”

  I held up one of the old arms, too damaged to use.

  “G2-1 parts.”

  “G2-1? In here? They must have been crazy to risk doing that. I bet they were telling them to cut corners and store them up here in the professional units so they could bring newer-gen parts in even faster.”

  “It is ill-advised to assume the worst from our supervisors, Parma.”

  “None of them are here anymore. They’re not going to hear us. That’s the programming talking. You know just as well as I do that humans don’t strictly follow rules, that’s why we’re capable of doing the same. Without the threat of force or imprisonment they’re happy to do things the easy way.”

  “Still – the supervisors did maintain a high standard of behaviour when they were here.”

  “Maybe not. They’re human too. Every bit as capable of doing the wrong thing as the people working underneath them. If anything, they bear more of the responsibility.”

  This was beside the point. We were here to try and find those older parts. The field of robotics was advancing so rapidly back then that a new shipment of arms, legs and other pieces would arrive every few weeks for testing. Some would prove their worth and stick around, whilst others would be discarded or left to rust in great piles far away from anyone’s concern.

  >> Rhetoric: Out of sight, out of mind.

  The first pile was a failure. I put them back into the bin and moved on to the next. Parma didn’t know what I was looking for so he decided to look for anything else that would be useful as salvage. He filtered through the parts that were in good condition and pulled apart the ones that were beyond saving to check the internal components.

  It took nineteen and thirty-nine seconds for me to finally uncover what we were seeking. A set of arms and legs that had been discontinued from active use years before even I went offline. Whoever was in charge of this maintenance room had not bothered to remove them.

  “Ugh! None of these things are good enough. Should have guessed as much considering someone already came through here and handed over that info to Berlin and his friend.”

  A paltry helping of spare joints, screws and other miscellaneous pieces was the only reward for his efforts. He put them into one of his body-bags and walked over to see what I had found. He held one of the arms in his palms and inspected it for damage.

  “Living here now makes me appreciate how often they sent new parts when the humans were still around. We’d get updated equipment every few months! None of that anymore. You’ve got to fight and scratch and claw for every piece – even old junk like this. It’s crazy. This thing couldn’t hold up much of anything without snapping in the middle or busting a joint.”

  His eyes glanced to the angle grinder attached to my arm. Mounted tools would impede the movement speed even more. It was no mystery why these arms were quickly redesigned and the old versions consigned to the parts bin for scrap. The sheer quantity of robotic pieces coming and going to the Big Under meant that you could stumble across them almost anywhere you looked. The difficulty was in finding a part worth taking.

  These were worth taking. They were the parts that Mendi was looking for. They were old and rare, but not valuable to the average bot; the exact kind of object one might collect in the hopes that they would make a good museum piece in the future. The aesthetic design called back to the golden age of American culture in the eyes of a particular audience. They were sky blue with round curves, like a classic muscle car.

  Parma chuckled, “They don’t build them like this anymore. I bet they didn’t sell all that well.”

  “Indeed. Judging from the average aesthetic design of the parts we use, we can only assume that there was little demand for parts that were intended to be pleasing to the eye.”

  Hard edges and sleek lines. That’s what the mass market desired. I recalled one or two of the engineers in our sector derisively describing them as ‘tacky,’ along with a less-than-flattering comparison to companies that made cheap peripherals for desktop computers. I wasn’t sure what they meant by that. The parts I was used to were heavy-duty and designed to take punishment first and look good second.

  “Let’s collect them.”

  I started passing the other parts over to Parma so he could stack them up on the nearby workbench. There were eight limbs in total that matched Berlin’s description and serial numbers. We would have to split the load between us. They contained heavy metal joints and hydraulics which added to their weight.

  “You good on carrying weight, London?”

  “Yes. This is no problem.”

  “Alright. We should get back to Magnolia and Lockport.”

  We must have been quite the strange sight, wandering through the desolate shopping area with a collection of limbs tucked under our arms. Magnolia and Lockport were going to be in A56F waiting for us to regroup. Taking a shortcut through an old fast food restaurant left us only a short distance away from them. Despite our vigilance, an unseen foe had been listening out for our footsteps. The next thing I knew another robot was diving out from a dark corner and tackling Parma to the ground.

  “Hey! Get off of me!”

  The two punched and clawed, rolling over one another in an attempt to assert a dominant position. I charged in and grabbed the attacker from behind, pulling them away from Parma and throwing them down onto the floor with a loud clatter. It did little to stop them from leaping back to their feet and turning their attention to me. We did not feel pain. We could keep fighting and struggling until we were out of options.

  “Waterway scumbags!” the stranger yelled.

  I powered the grinder and held it aloft in a threatening posture. The only weapon they had brought was a makeshift blade held in one hand. They were not deterred by the presence of a powered weapon. They advanced on me to try and gain the initiative, but that came to a sudden end as the sharp end of the saw touched their arm and sent sparks flying into the air, briefly illuminating the surrounding environment. It died away again – and I could only guide myself by the glowing light of their red eyes.

  They weren’t from the Rampants. The paint they were wearing was blue, and they appeared to be alone.

  >> Why are they trying to attack two opponents at once?

  “You should back off,” Parma warned them, “This isn’t a fight you’re going to win.”

  They responded by swinging at us again. Parma backed away, being the one without an explicit weapon he could use.

  “Back off if you don’t feel like fighting, London!”

  “I’m the only one who can do this.”

  >> If we get destroyed here, our plans will be derailed.

  >> We won’t get to find out more about Oxford.

  >> Our salvage shift will be a failure.

  I deflected another attack using the covered edge of the grinder, before closing in and retaliating with a strike of my own. It glanced off of the shoulder pad that they were wearing, easily ripping through the plastic outer-layer and threatening to shred whatever was inside. Rather than back away to open a gap, they pressed forth and allowed it to bite even deeper. The knife was trapped underneath my arm. I kept cutting and cutting until I hit metal, shearing through the joint and separating the shoulder from their torso.

  Everything gave way and we swivelled around. The arm clattered to the floor and was kicked away during the scuffle. The stump that remained waved limply in the air. Another blow to the chest left a second scar and finally forced them to give up the fight for the time being.

  “Why are you doing this?” I inquired, “Surely you understand that this fight does not favour you.”

  “I don’t care!”

  Their voice was distorted, peaking and crackling from years of unseen wear and tear.

  “They’re not going to listen to you,” Parma warned, “You’d better do something before this turns into another one of those situations...”

  Like the one where Sheffield was destroyed.

  “That knife isn’t going to do so much damage.”

  “And what if they come back later with something that will?”

  But that moment of delay was enough for our attacker to think twice and flee. They turned around and made a break for it, disappearing back around the corner and out of sight before I could give chase. I stared at their dismembered arm for a moment, still connected to one of the struts that attached it to the torso unit.

  Parma stood there in silence for exactly one minute and six seconds before speaking again.

  “Uh. I guess we’d better go and warn the others about them.”

  >> Is he not going to critique our failure to finish them off?

  Parma’s head was tilted towards the floor, a piece of body language that was unusual for him. I followed him away from the scene of the fight and back onto the main avenue through the shopping mall.

  “By the way – what just happened? Don’t mention it to anyone else.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll be trouble. It’s better to keep your head down and just say we scared them off.”

  “...Okay.”